Yoel Ro­me­ro KOs Chris Weid­man with fly­ing knee

Weid­man threw a kick to the bo­dy at the start of the first round. Ro­me­ro ans­we­red with his own kick to the so­lar plexus. Weid­man grab­bed on­to a leg and took “Sol­dier of God” down briefly. The two stood back up and “Al­lA­me­ri­can” used his kicks to keep his dis­tan­ce. Weid­man land­ed so­me kicks to set up a tak­e­down at­tempt. The for­mer middle­weight cham­pi­on coun­te­red his op­po­nent with a left hand. Ro­me­ro tried stuf­fing a tak­e­down, but was dum­ped down. Weid­man held on­to his op­po­nent’s back un­til the horn soun­ded.

Ti­me was hal­ted mo­men­ta­ri­ly as Ro­me­ro had to be wi­ped down from ex­cess wa­ter on his back. The two went toe-to­toe to be­gin the se­cond stan­za. Weid­man land­ed a hard leg kick and la­ter con­nec­ted with a bo­dy kick. He land­ed a knee to the bo­dy and Ro­me­ro clai­med he was po­ked in the eye. Re­plays showed Weid­man did in­deed ac­ci­den­tal­ly po­ke his op­po­nent in the eye. “All-Ame­ri­can” cau­ght a kick and had his head kick block­ed. Ro­me­ro did a slick trip on his op­po­nent and held on in search of a com­ple­te tak­e­down. He dro­ve Weid­man to the cen­ter of the Oc­ta­gon and took him down. The round en­ded with “Sol­dier of God” in top con­trol.

Right away, the two ex­chan­ged kicks. Ro­me­ro ti­med a tak­e­down at­tempt beau­ti­ful­ly with a knee to the fa­ce. So­me fol­low up pun­ches en­ded the fight. Weid­man was slow to get up and the si­de of his head was bu­sted open. Post-fight, reig­ning middle­weight cham­pi­on Mi­chael Bis­ping flip­ped Ro­me­ro the bird and the fu­tu­re chal­len­ger res­pon­ded by saying, “I lo­ve you,” and “you know me boy” among other things.